Silk Road palaces, caravanserai courtyards, and the best halva in the Caucasus
Sheki, roughly five hours north of Baku through increasingly green foothill country, was a major Silk Road trading post for centuries, and the town still wears that history openly — in caravanserai walls converted to hotels, in a Khan's Palace covered floor-to-ceiling in stained-glass shebeke windows assembled without a single nail, and in a bazaar where coppersmiths and halva-makers work in the same buildings their grandfathers used.
Most multi-day Azerbaijan tours allot Sheki one night. That's enough to see the headline sights, but a second night lets you actually slow down — walk the upper town at dusk, eat piti the way locals do, and watch the light change on the Caucasus foothills that ring the valley.
Sheki's covered bazaar is one of the few in Azerbaijan where you can still watch goods being made on-site rather than just sold. Copper workshops hammer trays and pots in full view of the lane; halva-makers fold walnut and saffron paste by hand in shallow copper pans.
The drive between Baku and Sheki passes through Lahij, a 2,000-year-old copper-smithing village worth a stop on either leg. Closer to Sheki itself, short walks into the foothills behind the town give views back over the rooftops and the Caucasus rising beyond — best at golden hour, when the light catches the valley.